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Joe College is an Uncle Tom.
One of the materials the orientation leaders
jsed in an attempt to stimulate discussion was
i reprint of “The Student as Nigger” by Gerald
Farber of Cal State L A. The article effectively
compares the student of today with the “colored
people” of yesterday. The subservient “colored
folk” are gone now and in their place stand
proud, determined Afro-Americans. The Black
man took a look at his situation, hated what he
saw, changed it and today continues to change.
It seems the student is just now slowly getting
around to seeing where he's at.
Hopefully the student can learn from what
the Black man has accomplished. What Black
people want and to some extent have gained is
control over their own lives and destinies. When
the opportunity was available they took it by
taking public offices and jobs. When the oppor
tunity was absent, by boycott and demonstra
tion, they united to create it. This is what the
student is beginning to realize. He must take
the opportunities available to him to influence
his education and, when those opportunities do
not exist, he must open them.
Maybe — hopefully — in an academic en
vironment these steps can be taken through
means less forceful than Blacks have been forc
id to employ. A community of highly educated
people should, it seems, be able to develop and
implement reasonable solutions to mutual pro
blems through non-violent means. The first step,
of course, is to take the fullest possible advan
tage of the opportunities which students now
have to make their voices heard in the decision
making processes affecting their education.
T he SEARCH program is only one example
of what can be done if enough effort is expended
through presently available opportunities.
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Change is going to come in all levels
■of the academic community, student
governments and organizations, facul
ties, and administrations.
The nature, course and swiftness of the change
depends on the amount of student support and
the means toward which that support is directed.
Resistance to change is present also in all levels
of the academic community and in the taxpayers.
Rememher that some still consider the presence
' of controversial speakers on campus a debatable
subject.
It is as odd as it is true that academics in gen
eral are noted for their conservatism regarding
IhEit ... .1. in ..I . ;L.m and ndncalional
methods and practices. It took years for the Fa
culty Senate to open its door even to the press.
It was only two weeks ago that the faculty final
ly opened its meetings to the public.
There, of course, is a perennial faculty-admin
istration argument used, as the occasion re
quires, to stifle student approaches to the realiza
tion of community government. It is provided
here as a refresher: “The student has no business
participating in the policy formulating processes
of the University. The student spends only a
short time at the University and has no real in
terest in long-range decisions while the faculty
and administration, on the other hand, will be
making their careers here.” This is usually sup
plemented by reference, explicitly or implicitly,
to the student’s “subordinate role” and his in
herent “immaturity.”
The concept of community government is not
particularly new at the University, but it still
is little more than a concept. The idea proposes
that it is feasible that the University—students,
faculty and administration—function as a com
munity. The premise is that this community of
equal members with three basic role distinctions
(student, teacher, administrator) could govern
itself with one government and one set of rules
to the benefit of all and particularly to the bene
fit of education.